


A Moment In the Sun

by Clea2011



Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Character Death, Fall of Atlantis, M/M, No Happy Ever After, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6864685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clea2011/pseuds/Clea2011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is the fall of Atlantis,” Jason told Pythagoras as they picked their way through the ruins of what had once been the east wing of the palace.  “Atlantis will sink into the sea, fade into myth and legend.”</p><p>This is what happened.  And there was more than one legend created by the fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment In the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the hc bingo May Challenge, which is to create a work for a small fandom - and the prompt 'Apocalypse'.  
> Huge thanks to Deinonychus_1 for the beta and for still speaking to me despite the way this ends!
> 
> Do heed the warnings, this isn't a happy fic.

Pythagoras stood on one of the palace balconies, gazing out over the city.  It was early evening, and torches were starting to be lit in the streets and houses below.  Icarus was down there somewhere, spending the evening at his father’s house before returning to join Pythagoras in their rooms at the palace.

It had been over a month since the Argo had returned from its voyage.  Weeks since Pasiphae’s defeat and execution.  They’d done it properly this time, made sure of it.

Ariadne and Jason had taken their rightful places on the throne of Atlantis once more, and the city was finally starting to come out from under the shadow of the dark queen’s rule.  Things should have been getting better.  And yet…

Every single day since Pasiphae’s death there had been an earthquake in the city.  Tiny at first, a mere tremor, barely noticed.  But with each passing day those tremors grew stronger, more destructive.  Earlier that day one of the rows of houses closest to the sea had collapsed, unable to take the abuse any more.

There was a large crack in the wall of the temple.  People were saying it was a sign that Pasiphae would rise again.  After all, she’d risen from the dead once before.  But Pythagoras had watched her body burn this time.  There was no chance of a resurrection.

He looked out over the city, waiting for Icarus to return home, still not entirely comfortable with calling the palace by that name.  Hercules and he were the king’s advisors, second only to the queen in Jason’s esteem.  It was a truly breath-taking position, higher than Pythagoras could ever have imagined rising.  Though really, he wanted to sit and study, work on theorems, perhaps work with Daedalus again.  Mathematics and science were his fields of interest, not politics. 

“Pythagoras!”

And there was his other interest, his love, his Icarus, home already.  Pythagoras turned away from the city and opened his arms to welcome him home.  And, for a little while, he forgot.

\---

Five weeks, and the earthquakes were impossible to ignore. 

The temple had fallen, nothing left of it but a pile of rubble.  Cassandra had escaped, but two of the temple guards hadn’t been so lucky.  Forty-two lives had been claimed so far, and the total rose every day.  Everyone looked troubled, but none more so than Jason.

“This is the fall of Atlantis,” he told Pythagoras as they picked their way through the ruins of what had once been the east wing of the palace.  “Atlantis will sink into the sea, fade into myth and legend.”

Evidently the strain was telling on the new king, or he’d been hanging around Cassandra too much.  Pythagoras just nodded, worried.  He’d have to talk to Hercules about their friend.  A whole land couldn’t sink into the sea, it was impossible.

“We should start to build boats,” Jason said.  “Enough for everyone.”

Beneath his feet, the ground began to shake again.

\---

Two months, and the lower town had completely flooded.  People began to leave the city, some on foot, some by the newly built boats.

“You should leave too,” Jason insisted.  “Save yourselves.”

But Pythagoras had too many injured to tend to, and Icarus tried to help.  Hercules refused to leave any of them.  They all stayed.

\---

Three months and Hercules left on one of the last boats. 

It was full of walking wounded, and he’d only gone under protest because there weren’t enough able-bodied men to sail it safely away from Atlantis.  Ariadne had been on that boat too.  Given a sleeping draft, because she would never have abandoned her city, she was the real reason Hercules had agreed to leave.  Jason would entrust her safety to nobody else.

There was no doubt that the city was sinking.  The lower town had completely vanished beneath the waves, and the higher town was an island, cut off from the mainland.  A handful of boats returned to pick up more people, but it was never going to be fast enough.

“This is surely the end,” Icarus murmured, watching the night fall over the city.  There were few torches lit now.  “We should have left while there was hope.”

“I asked you to leave, my love,” Pythagoras reminded him.  “Many times.  You and your father both.”

“I would never leave without you,” Icarus declared. 

“And your father would never leave without you,” Pythagoras sighed.  “But we must go tomorrow.  All of us.  Even the king.  I fear the palace won’t survive another quake.”

Icarus held him close, and for a short while made Pythagoras forget.

\---

They didn’t go. 

They couldn’t, the last of the ships sailed that night and didn’t wait.

“Like the Titanic and the last of the lifeboats,” Jason said sadly.  “Do we have a band?”

He said strange things sometimes.  Pythagoras thought it was probably stress.

“Perhaps the boats will come back for us,” he said hopefully.

Jason just laughed.

\---

“My father has an idea,” Icarus had said.  “I have tried this before, and although it sounds like madness, it works.”

Pythagoras had a bad feeling whenever Daedalus had ideas.  They were usually somewhere high up on the insanity scale.  When he saw what this one involved, it didn’t reassure him.

“No.”

“But I have used them.  Remember how I helped you escape the city before?  We could do it again, fly out to the mainland.  The earthquakes aren’t hitting there, the people who walked out over the land weeks ago are all fine.  It’s close enough.  We can do it.”

“I’ve adjusted for all our weights,” Daedalus added.  “I can’t wait to try.”

“I was safe before,” Icarus added eagerly.  “I was shot down.  Nobody is shooting at us now.  And it was easy, you just glide.  We could glide out from the palace walls, cross the sea and reach safety.”

“You mean the Icarian Sea?” Jason asked, not smiling when it was suggested to him.  “It’ll be the death of you.  No.  Find another way.”  He looked at Pythagoras when he spoke, his face more serious than the healer had ever seen it.  “Trust me on this.  Don’t ever let Icarus fly again.”

But there was no such sea.  Stress again, the loss of their city messing with Jason’s mind.  Pythagoras knew they needed to get the king out of there.

\---

Miraculously there was a boat. 

It was small, and couldn’t take everyone.  Jason would rage when he woke, but drugging him and placing him on board was the only way to save the king.  He’d thank them one day.  Possibly.

Ariadne would thank them, anyway. 

As the boat sailed away, the sails shrinking to a tiny dot on the horizon, the latest earthquake hit the city.  Buildings swayed and crumbled, never built to withstand such treatment.

“We should leave as well,” Daedalus said. 

They hadn’t gone on the boat because there wasn’t enough room for them all, and Pythagoras wouldn’t leave Icarus, and Icarus wouldn’t leave his father.  And besides Icarus and Daedalus were so sure the wings would work.  Daedalus had enhanced them since Icarus had taken the original wings on their maiden flight, years ago now.  Those years had flown past too. 

“It will be fine, you will see,” Icarus promised as they carried the three pairs of wings up to the top of the last remaining ramparts of what had once been the palace.  His smile was still as hopeful and eager as the first time Pythagoras had noticed him.  That day, when he’d seen Daedalus’s quiet and nervous boy had grown into a young man.  A young man who Pythagoras could no longer imagine a life without. 

Daedalus was taking the steps two at a time.  He had been enthusing about this for weeks, ignoring Jason’s concerns.  He’d tested the wings himself, of course.  His son might have been the first, but after watching him there was no way that Daedalus wouldn’t have wanted to fly himself.

“Shouldn’t we wait for nightfall?” Pythagoras wondered.  “The wax…”

“It’s stronger now,” Daedalus assured him.  “I used resin, the bond is solid. We tested it on the hottest day of the year.  The wings made from wax are still in my workshop.  These are the new ones.  We could fly right in the face of the sun if we wanted to and it wouldn’t touch them.”

Pythagoras wondered if that was what they’d all been doing, ever since Jason first arrived in Atlantis.  And it had touched them, burned them all, but they’d come out on the other side, scorched but not broken.  Even with the city in ruins, they weren’t broken.  Far from it, Daedalus and Icarus were grinning broadly, excited about the flight to come.

Once, Pythagoras had wondered at how very different they were.  But at that moment he could see the family resemblance very strongly.  Icarus was every bit his father’s son.  Pythagoras didn’t share their enthusiasm for the insane escapade one bit, and climbed the steps slowly, trailing along behind. 

\---

It was madness, and yet as he stood on the edge looking down at the long drop below him, the scientist in Pythagoras wanted to try.  The sensible, rational side of him, however, would rather have taken his chances in the doomed city.  He wondered if it was too late to try building a raft.  Daedalus and Icarus evidently thought so.  It was madness.  Pythagoras could imagine Hercules telling him as much.  Madness.

“Just let yourself fall forward,” Daedalus urged.  “Glide, don’t try to flap your arms.”

“He told me that, too,” Icarus added.  “It does work.”  Icarus was standing there beside him, confident and eager to leave, standing up on tiptoe, stretching forward and for a moment Pythagoras thought he was going to fall.  But Icarus just laughed and leaned back again. 

“We should all go together,” Daedalus decided.

And they did.

Pythagoras leaned forward, letting himself tip over slowly in the way that Daedalus advised.  It was madness.  If Hercules could see him now, he would berate him for being a fool, for not getting on one of the boats when he had the chance.  But it was too late, and Pythagoras was falling, his heart beating like a drum, frozen in terror as he went down.

“Glide!” he heard one of the others shout.  “Arms straight, tilt a little, catch the wind.”

He tried, and somehow it worked and he was soaring through the air, the ruined city far below him.  And it was amazing, every bit as exhilarating as Icarus had claimed.  He tore his eyes away from the view to look at his partner.  Icarus was laughing from the sheer joy of it, banking and turning, giving himself up to his element.  Pythagoras had never seen him look so free.

“Not too high,” he warned, but Icarus just laughed and climbed further, spiralling ever upwards on a thermal of warm air. 

And from that angle the wings Icarus used looked white on the underside, none of the dark brown stains on them that marked those of Daedalus or Pythagoras.  They were pure, he looked almost swan-like, flying ever upwards.  The sunlight reflected off them, brightening them further.

“Why does Icarus get the white wings?” Pythagoras called.  “Are we too jaded for them?”

He saw Daedalus frowning, puzzled, and then the horror settle on his face as the realisation dawned.

“Icarus!  Your wings!  You took the wrong ones!  Come down, land.  Hurry!  Oh my boy, my son. Icarus!”

“Icarus!” Pythagoras yelled too.  “Your wings are bound by wax!  Fly lower.” 

But Icarus was too high and didn’t hear, and soared ever upwards.  “See how high I am!” he called down to them delightedly.  “I can almost touch the sun!”

A single feather fluttered down, and Pythagoras knew what was about to happen.  He could hear Daedalus shouting, his voice desperate.  His own voice rose alongside it, pleading, begging.  Icarus wasn’t listening, didn’t notice the feather or the ones that followed it until too many had fallen. 

“Icarus…” Pythagoras breathed. 

He saw the moment that Icarus realised, saw the confusion and then the fear on his face.  For a moment his lover’s eyes met his own, the two of them frozen just for the briefest of moments.  Then the wings started to disintegrate, the rest of the feathers falling like snow.

“No…”

Pythagoras tried to fly under him, to stop his fall.  He didn’t care if that meant he might fall as well because the alternative was living on without his love.  He was vaguely aware that Daedalus was trying the same thing, but Icarus was falling too fast and their wings didn’t allow them to manoeuvre quickly.  They were never going to stand a chance.

And then Icarus was gone, a broken creature plummeting past them, tumbling down to the sea below.  There was a splash, brief, water rippling out from it and then he was gone. 

Nothing to show that he had ever been.

Pythagoras let out a howl of grief and pain, and tried to swoop down after him.  But the sea winds were strong, and his wings were tightly bound.  They carried their unwilling passenger onwards, towards safety, towards land.  Away from his drowned love.

\---

Pythagoras stood on the cliff edge, gazing out over the sea.  It was early evening, and the sun was setting low on the horizon.  Icarus was out there somewhere, forever lost.

Others had settled in the new land, rebuilt their lives in the years after Atlantis fell.  And Pythagoras settled there too, grown famous for the brilliance of his mind, uncluttered by trivialities like love and family.  Focused only on knowledge.  Revered as he grew older, surrounded by friends but always still ultimately alone. 

His body had aged, the walk up to the cliff took longer, more effort with every year.

Soon, he knew, as he looked across the water, the wait would be over. 

Soon.


End file.
